Redeemer, come

I’m a big fan of Catherine Winkworth, the extraordinarily accomplished 19^th Century English feminist who gave the Anglophone world some of the best translations of German Lutheran hymns. Last year I gave you her Isaiah-based “Comfort, Comfort Ye My People”, which my work colleagues and fellow Metro commuters have heard from me for the past few days.

Today let’s have another of her translations, “Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates”, set to the tune “Truro”. This hymn urges us to open wide the portals of our hearts to receive the waiting King of Glory. That’s what the season of Advent is, although we’re often told that it’s a period when we’re doing the waiting, not the other way round.

I rather like it.

Hear the watchmen sing

Last year I gave you “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” from J.S. Bach’s cantata of the same name. It’s possibly the über music for Advent, which is all about preparing for the savior’s birth. The text references the parable about the wise and foolish virgins—two groups of maidens waiting to greet the bridegroom at a wedding. Only one group has really thought through—and prepared for—this arrival; no prizes for guessing which one.

(Also, you can take it as read that this is one parable that’s overdue for an update removing the sexist framing. Or at least mention all the men at the wedding who are getting drunk on beer, shooting craps and generally getting in the caterer’s way.)

Well, turns out that there’s a version of “Wachet auf” by my favorite Renaissance composer, Michael Praetorius. And here it is:

Try out both versions, see which one speaks most clearly to you.

Born to make manifest

Search for carols appropriate to Saint Lucy (whose martyrdom is commemorated today), and basically all the Interwebz can hawk up is “Santa Lucia”. Which I gave you last year, along with a treatise on pre-Christian Scandinavian mythology. And look, there’s nothing wrong with reprising it, but I wanted to see what else is out there.

After all, what those Nordic folk are clinging to is that hope of light returning—very important when you’re spending 24 hours a day in frozen darkness for a few months. In the case of Saint Lucy, whose name means light, the focus is on candles—which, as you know, I am all in favor of. Especially in winter.

So I started playing with “light”, and came across the old (well, -ish) gospel song, “This Little Light of Mine”. It’s not specifically a Christmas or Advent piece, but takes its theme from Jesus telling his followers (in Matthew 5:14-16, if you’re asking) “Ye are the light of the world. …Let your light shine before men, that they may see your fine works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Basically: shut the hell up and live a life of love and decency that others will want to follow—not envy, follow. So it’s appropriate that “This Little Light” became one of the anthems of the Civil Rights movement, which we still need after all these decades.

There are plenty of versions of the song, and I was going to go with one by Etta James, but then I found this one from Odetta, which she prefaces with Marianne Williamson’s “Our Deepest Fear”. This unexpected discovery like to knocked me out; I know the poem, but I’d forgot all about it. Hearing Odetta say, “We are all meant to shine” just cut through me with surgical precision. And then she started singing.

Not Christmas, not Advent, but absolutely right for today, and absolutely the right version for me to listen to.

Possibly the right one for you, too?

Divine flame

Today’s Advent piece is kind of obscure. At least, I can’t find a lot of information about it. The melody for “Bel astre que j’adore” dates to the 15^th Century at least; the text may as well.

I like it because its delicate weaving in a minor key just appeals to me. It seems to suit cold winter nights, when the ancients would look to the light in the sky and hope for the return of warmth, for the sun at full strength.

Anyway, the singer speaks of deep love for the Beautiful Star, which of course is a proxy for the Christ child. The second verse in particular describes the divine and pure fire that descends from heaven and fills the soul. The final verse brings in angelic choirs singing “hymns of praise and songs of my happiness.”

We could all use some of that.

Angels and shepherds together

Let’s return to Czechia for today’s Advent carol. “Nesem Vám novíny” translates to “We Bring You News”, which makes it perhaps a tad premature for Advent. (Interesting aside: if you type Nesem Vám novíny into Google Translate, it returns “I bring you newspaper.” That would be an entirely different carol.) The lyrics describe how Mary has given birth, and angels and shepherds are in attendance.

So it’s a done deed.

An American scholar, Mari R. Hofer, translated Nesem Vám novíny into an English carol in 1912. She kept the same Bohemian folk tune. In Hofer’s version, the shepherds and angels are being invited to the stable. I cannot attest to how loose either translation might be; I don’t judge.

Here it is in Czech:

And here’s an English version:

Gratitude Monday: Myrtle wreaths and roses twine

It has been said that the entirety of Jewish holidays can be distilled down to this triad: they tried to kill us; we won; let’s eat. Yesterday marked the last night of Hanukkah, the eight-day commemoration of the successful conclusion of the Jewish revolt against the Seleucids in 165 BCE. A lot of latkes have been consumed over the past week in homes around the world, accompanied by the sound of dreidels being spun.

The revolt was led by Judah, known as Judah Maccabee, “Judah the Hammer”, a brilliant military leader who employed the kinds of tactics later used by Thomas J. Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. Victory included rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem, which had been desecrated under the occupation forces. In order to perform the cleansing ritual, the Jews needed to burn pure, unadulterated olive oil in the Temple’s menorah every night. After all the turmoil of revolution, there was only enough of the kosher oil to last a single night, and it would take much longer than a day to lay in a supply to fulfill this requirement.

However, the lamp was lighted and the oil lasted for eight nights, until new oil could be brought in. Hanukkah is the celebration of this event, combining joy at the overthrow of tyranny with delight at the miracle of the oil. Eight nights of light in the temple, eight candles (and the shamash, the servant candle that lights all the others) on the hanukkiyah. Plus latkes and the dreidel. It’s another of those holidays that rejoices at the triumph of light over darkness (freedom over oppression, good over evil), and I don’t think we can have too many of these.

For today’s music, let’s have a piece from Georg Friedrich Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus. Rather unfortunately, the oratorio was written to honor the triumph of the Duke of Cumberland over the rebellious Scots at Culloden in 1746. (Seriously—Cumberland’s single win in a long and uninspiring military career hardly equates to an upset David/Goliath victory like the Maccabees. But Handel was sucking up to Cumberland’s father, George II, so a composer’s gotta do what a composer’s gotta do.) But let’s not hold that against the music.

“See, the Conqu’ring Hero Comes” has a chorus of ecstatic Judeans welcoming the victorious Judah, who has paved the way to peace and earned their heartfelt thanks. Note that emphasis is on female voices. That’s because the score calls for youths and virgins to lead the crowd in proclaiming their joy. Only at the end do you get all the Israelites chiming in.

Seems perfectly legit to be contemplating an actual victory over oppression and a return to peace for this week in Advent and this Gratitude Monday. That I found a concert performance of it by Voces para la Paz is just a little bit of that miraculous oil.

Only in my dreams

Not everyone’s winter holidays are all peace, joy and light. Expectations are impossibly high, ratcheted up by every media outlet in the country; possibly in the entire planet. In the Western world, consumerism is strong and we’re continually blasted (starting these days well before Halloween) with exhortations to buy that perfect gift for everyone on your list. Not to mention decking the halls, preparing and consuming feasts, putting on and attending parties.

All of this only highlights wealth disparities in our society—or even just differences in economic security. I don’t think any other time of year so acutely plays up the delta between the haves and have nots. Indeed—between the haves and probably never will haves.

There are calls for charity, of course; we receive blizzards of donation requests—which puts yet another stressor on some of us, because how can we support them all? (Also, it pisses me off some, because why should a hungry child only receive our generosity in December, when she’s hungry the other eleven months, too?)

In fact, Advent is meant to be a time for preparing to receive the Messiah into our midst, a time of quiet, of contemplation, of inward anticipation of this Gift, not the kaleidoscopically manic whirlwind of Hallmark Movie Channel festivities this month has become. But turning inward and reflecting in the quiet can open you up to less-than-joyful emotions, so I get it why people would rather double down on holiday expectations than look into the darkness. It’s something I’ve struggled with for decades.

All this is by way of me pointing out that focusing only on joyous music in Advent doesn’t really speak to everyone. So here’s something for those of us who are not finding the runup to Christmas entirely felicitous. I think it's timely for Advent 2 and the theme of Peace.

It should come as no surprise that “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” was written in 1943 (first recorded by Bing Crosby). Its lyrics encapsulate the longing of every soldier on every side in every war for the past millennium to be with family and friends for the quintessential family-and-friends holiday. Its wistful melancholy contrasts sharply with the upbeat tone of the piece my parents used to play, “Home for the Holidays”. In the latter, regardless of the Atlantic to Pacific traffic, people will make it home. In the former—not so much.

Josh Groban’s cover of “I’ll Be Home” is some years old, but we still have troops in harm’s way in both Iraq and Afghanistan—and now on our own bloody southern border. Peace is something these men and women understand profoundly. They will not be home for Christmas—so let’s have Groban.

I’ve always felt an affinity for this song; I think it’s because—for at least two decades—I’ve not been able to figure out where home is.